


if a man could be two places

by rudimentaryflair



Series: AELDWS 2019 [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Don't copy to another site, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-18 00:03:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19965427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudimentaryflair/pseuds/rudimentaryflair
Summary: A story about falling in love twice.





	if a man could be two places

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 3 of the AELDWS 2019 challenge.
> 
> Prompt: Alight  
> Genre: Fable  
> Word Count: Exactly 300
> 
> (Betaed by the lovely [Aud](https://forgerfondofpaisley.tumblr.com))

It starts like this. 

Arthur runs into Mal on a rainy Tuesday, when the wind blows off his hat and she gets ink on the brim catching it. She calls him _mon chéri._

The universe dangles Dominick Cobb in front of them and greedily, foolishly, they grab at him. Mal falls in love and Arthur does too, but his mistress is a silver case and the way his dreams run liquid like his staircases and the somnacin in his veins. Mal dreams in infinity and wide open spaces. She tells him to dream bigger, but he only dreams safe. 

Dom dreams in caskets and locked vaults. He shuts a weight in Mal’s head and lets it fester, lets it rot, let’s it drag her down into the pavement. That night, Arthur’s dreams run like the wine spilling around Dom’s shoes.

If this is how his story begins, then Arthur dreads how it will end. 

It starts like this.

Arthur runs into Eames when he steals his wallet, then his heart. He calls Arthur _darling_.

Eames dreams in swooping streaks of personality, in hot blazes and police car chases. He tells Arthur to dream bigger, and Arthur wants to grab him by the collar and shout for him to dream dimmer, dream smaller, because Mal dreamed too big and look where she is now. 

Inside the hotel, Eames’ smirk suits him the way limbo suits the both of them, and Arthur thinks that they’re all going to die anyway.

Two levels down, Arthur dreams in fire, in smoke, in grand exits, as he snaps the cords of an elevator shaft and writes his final act.

But this story doesn’t end with a bang or a flourish.

It ends with a top, stripped of its shade, 

spinning idly, 

cloudlessly, 

freely,

until

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Yes, I changed the title.


End file.
